Featured series 
Tag: Physics
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Science & Tech
Young star may be belching spheres of gas, astronomers say
Observations by astronomers of a young star in the constellation Cepheus, more than 2000 lights-years away, suggest that it is repeatedly belching spheres of gas. Current theories about how young stars shed matter would not have predicted such eruptions. In order to remain stable while accumulating matter, young stars have to throw off some of…
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Science & Tech
Harvard researchers stop, restart, light
Albert Einstein theorized that light cannot travel faster than 186,282 miles per second. But he never said it couldn’t go slower. Lene Hau, a physics professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, says Einstein would “probably be stunned” at the results of her recent experiments. Working in her laboratory at the…
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Science & Tech
Closing in on the ‘theory of everything’
A single theory describing nature’s four forces, called the “Theory of Everything,” has been the Holy Grail for physicists and other scientists seeking the universe’s deepest mysteries. Physicist Juan Maldacena has devised a way to explain gravity using a theory that also explains the other three basic forces of nature. And in this day of…
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Science & Tech
Black silicon: A new way to trap light
Eric Mazur, Harvard College Professor and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, and his students were studying what kinds of new chemistry can occur when lasers shine on metals, like platinum. One day, they decided to put a chip of gray silicon into a vacuum chamber, add some halogen gas, and scan it with ultrashort,…
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Science & Tech
‘Ultracold’ trap unveils secrets of matter in the universe
Physics Professor John Doyle traps the tiny particles that make up the universe and then studies them, looking for what they can tell him about the most basic rules of nature. Specifically, Doyle is looking for evidence of discrepancies in the theory known as the Standard Model, the major theory of how the basic particles…
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Science & Tech
Physicists Slow Speed of Light
Light, which normally travels the 240,000 miles from the Moon to Earth in less than two seconds, has been slowed to the speed of a minivan in rush-hour traffic — 38 miles an hour. An entirely new state of matter, first observed four years ago, has made this possible. When atoms become packed super-closely together…